I don’t usually write about what’s happening right now in MLB. Honestly, I don’t have the time to write fast enough to keep up. But I’m going to make an exception here because I’ve been thinking about Aaron Judge, why he’s been so bad in the postseason, and what it will take for him to get better.
Aaron Judge is a unique hitter. I know we all know that, but I’m not sure we recognize the extent to which he is unique. His uniqueness is his strength, but it is also his vulnerability. Let me try to summarize what I am getting at.
- Aaron Judge is, by far, the greatest hitter of all time when not striking out.
- This is because, when he puts the ball in play, he hits it very hard more consistently than anyone else in history.
- He is able to do this for three reasons. One, his immense size and strength; two, his picture-perfect swing; three, and most germane to this discussion, his refusal to compromise the integrity of his swing in any situation.
- As a result of his refusal to compromise his swing, he is particularly helpless when swinging at pitches outside the strike zone.
Now I will elaborate on each of these points.
Point 1
This is actually quite easy to establish. I pulled the stats of the eight guys with the highest Adjusted OPS+ in MLB history and calculated their slash lines (Avg/OBP/Slugging) when not striking out. Here they are:
- Ruth: .406/.535/.819
- Williams: .379/.519/.698
- Bonds: .353/.506/.719
- Gehrig: .377/.482/.702
- Hornsby: .391/.456/.629
- Judge: .436/.563/.915
- Trout: .409/.528/.795
- Mantle: .378/.507./.706
That’s clear, isn’t it? His Career OPS when not striking out is 1.478. Judge is the best. It’s not even close.
Point 2
I can’t establish this with certainty because obviously we don’t have batted ball data for older players. But Judge certainly rules this category among modern players. To be clear, I’m talking about his average batted ball, not the maximum; there are a few others such as Ohtani, Oneil Cruz, and Stanton whose max exit velocity is higher than Judge’s.
There are a number of advanced statistics that attempt to measure how hard a player is hitting the ball. The best known is exit velocity. Judge has led the league in average exit velocity four straight seasons.
Another advanced statistic is “barrels”. I will admit that I’m not entirely clear on what constitutes a barrel, but whatever it is, Aaron Judge is a helluva lot better at it than anyone else. Here are the leaders for the last three seasons in barrels per batted ball (i.e. per ball put in play, anything other than a strikeout):
2022:
- Judge, 26.5%
- Alvarez, 21.0%
- Schwarber, 20.1%
- Trout, 19.7%
- Stanton, 19.3%
2023:
- Judge, 27.5%
- Ohtani, 19.6%
- Alvarez, 18%
- JD Martinez, 17.1%
- Matt Chapman, 17.1%
2024:
- Judge, 26.9%
- Ohtani, 21.5%
- Stanton, 20.7%
- Soto, 19.7%
- Michael Toglia, 17.3%
Aaron Judge hits the ball harder, more consistently, than anyone else. And that’s why he’s the greatest hitter that ever lived when not striking out.
Why is Judge able to hit the ball so hard, when he does hit it? This is more subjective, but watching him so much over the years, I think it comes down to his physique and his swing.
Points 3 and 4
Obviously the man is immensely strong. He’s probably one of the strongest players ever to play the game. His height, while it does give him a big strike zone, also enables him to cover the plate. He can easily barrel a ball on the outside corner and hit it out to right.
In turn, he has adopted a hitting style uniquely suited to take advantage of his size and strength. He knows he does not need to pull the ball; he just needs to barrel it. This allows him to simplify his approach immensely. He does not need to look for a pitch in a particular location; he can go with it. Pitches at the edge of the zone that other hitters can’t barrel, he can. And if the gets the barrel to it, he wins.
But as important as his physique is, his swing is more important. We’ve all seen it in slow-motion a hundred times now – smooth, fluid, balanced, on plane, and yet incredibly powerful. And he repeats it every single time. He doesn’t choke up with two strikes; he doesn’t try to just put it in play; he’s not hitting behind the runner, or trying to hit a sac fly, or any of that. He has one swing, it’s his “A” swing, and he never, ever changes it based on the situation.
It’s this invariability of his swing that I want to focus on. My theory is that it’s this invariability that has enabled him to refine and perfect his swing so masterfully, almost like a golfer. Combined with his size and strength, it enables him to get the barrel to the ball more than anyone else when the ball is in his hitting zone – which includes most of the strike zone.
But there’s a trade off, and we’ve already alluded to it. He doesn’t foul off pitches off the plate with two strikes, because you have to change your swing to do that. He either takes them or strikes out. He hits very few bloopers, or weak grounders, or pop-ups, because most soft contact is the result of a defensive swing, and Aaron Judge doesn’t do defensive swings. He’s also a terrible bad ball hitter. Remember the home run Stanton hit in Game 1 off Jack Flaherty, where he went down and golfed that breaking ball? Judge, with all due respect, could never do that.
So this picture-perfect, repeatable, almost robotic (in a good way) swing makes him the greatest hitter that ever lived on balls in the zone; but it makes him absolutely incapable of hitting, or even spoiling, balls outside the zone. If he gets a hit with two strikes, it’s because the pitcher missed his location. The kind of epic at bat that Soto had in ALCS Game 5, fouling off a bunch of tough pitches until he got one he could handle, is inconceivable for Judge.
What it really comes down to is this: he can’t chase. If he chases, he’s toast. Where he’s gotten better over the years is reducing his chase rate. His 2024 chase rate was 18.7%, the lowest of his career and almost ten percent lower than the MLB average of 28.5%. And, supporting what I’ve been saying, when he does chase, he makes contact only 42.7% of the time, 15% lower than the MLB average.
The thing is, in spite of all the walks he draws, he is fundamentally and temperamentally an aggressive hitter. He goes up there looking to do damage, not to get on base. In the regular season, he’s gotten very good at controlling and channeling that aggression by laying off tough pitches. In the postseason, probably because of the immense pressure that is on him, he has been unable to do that, and pitchers are using his aggressiveness against him. Somehow he has to get back to normal, let the game come to him, let those pitches go, and get into hitters’ counts. If he can do that, I am confident the real Aaron Judge will emerge.
As frustrating as it is to see him refuse to change his swing with two strikes and strike out, the repeatability of his swing is what makes him Aaron Judge. He just has to swing at pitches he can reach. If he does not get himself out by chasing, he’s the best hitter that ever lived. If I were him – and what do I know – I would resolve in the next couple games not to swing at a breaking ball until he has two strikes. They have no intention of throwing him a breaking ball in the zone. If that means you take the occasional mistake hanger, so be it.